Private hospitals have complained that treating COVID-19 patients and others in the same hospital has increased risks for doctors and nurses.
They have said that doing so has increased risks not just for the doctors and nurses but even those working in housekeeping during the meeting of a sub-committee under the Education and Health Committee of the parliament on Monday.
"The patient who tests negative while in the ward gets fever two days after surgery, and then tests positive," Medical Director of Grande Hospital Dr Chakra Raj Pandey said. "It seems unlikely to survive financially if the hospital were to bear the expenses of their treatment, make arrangements of food for them and to take care of them by admitting them at the hotel or in hospital bed to motivate the staffers and doctors."
He pointed that treatment of COVID-19 patients in private hospitals will be expensive. "Even taking care of our staffers will be challenging forget about providing COVID-19 service if we fail to take care of them and pay them in time," he stressed. "We cannot say that the situation is less worse for private hospitals than the government institutions now."
Chief of COVID-19 management at B&B Hospital Sangita Shakya called the decision to treat COVID-19 patients and others in the same hospital the biggest mistake. "Non-COVID patients would at least get proper service if the capacity of dedicated COVID-19 hospitals were expanded and COVID-19 patients kept there," she stated.
"Staffers are scared to touch the patients now. There is a kid but the emergency section is refusing to admit the kid. We are facing such problems at B&B now," she elaborated. "The staffers at emergency ask to not bring in the kid who arrived at midnight until four in the morning. They ask to only bring after PCR test. This is not the problem of ours alone and others are also facing such problems."
She said having to do so is not right. "Are we doing right by doing so? The risk of infection has increased by allocating 20 percent of beds in all hospitals for COVID-19 patients."
In-charge of the isolation ward at Norvic Hospital Ajay Khadka said the hospital is facing the challenges of management. He revealed that hospital staffers are being kept at a separate hostel. "The hospital is making all arrangements including food and accommodation. We have been adding incentives on top of salary for the staffers. We have allocated a separate building for treatment of COVID-19 patients to ensure that other patients are not affected."
The government has recently instructed all the private hospitals to allocate 20 percent of beds for COVID-19 patients.
